Michael has announced on Techcrunch that Goowy released their instant messaging and storage features. Yep, it’s Box.net storage. This means you can now pull up the same files you’ve uploaded to Box.net from Goowy and vice versa. This is our vision for Box… It’s the idea that your files should be free, not “locked” inside your computer, a USB drive, etc. Your files should be available anywhere you want them - and that shouldn’t be limited to just the Box.net website. The best part is, we haven’t even gotten started (figuratively speaking of course). We have additional partnerships in the works which will make your Box.net account substantially more valuable in terms of what you can do with your data, and where you can take it. While I cannot mention particular integrations before they’re completed, imagine being able to upload a document from Goowy or Netvibes, then use that same file on a Wiki or attach it to a shared calendar. That’s the Box.net dream.

Getting there takes time of course. There have been and will be hurdles along the way, and we’re constantly making enhancements to our technology that will improve the experience for users accessing files from both our site and our partners’ apps. Until next time, keep uploading.

Update: I should remind our users that another great start page has a Box.net integration. Check out www.pageflakes.com for another great way to access your files remotely. We’ll soon be creating a directory of sites that support Box.net access… Stay tuned!

It’s too early to talk about it much, but it appears that Microsoft is working on Live Drive - yes, you guessed it, this will be an online storage service. For the most part my reaction is similar to what it was for Google’s “announcement.” I’m trying to figure out if GOOG and MSFT will approach this space differently, but I’m inclined to say that they will be very similar offerings. Each company has advantages in their own right: microsoft is inherently more connected to your desktop, while google has shown it has a much better web strategy so far. As an online storage startup, this is both good and bad.

The Good:

Online storage will soon become a Big industry. As someone in the chat room recently said, our turf is getting validated. The benefit of big players with big pockets is that 95% of the marketing and consumer education/awareness will be done for us. The media bites at anything coming out of Mountain View and Redmond. In the broader fight, we’re trying to get consumers to realize that online storage is more useful and economical than alternatives like remote pc access, thumbdrives, external harddrives, and discs. If another company’s resources and clout can make that happen, it only helps us.

To utilize this opportunity, we just need to continue to make Box.net stand out from the rest. How? We keep our focus on features, ease of use, privacy, neutrality, customer service.

The Bad:

There will be a downward push on pricing (Something that will surely make Michael happy). Our margins will become smaller, which means less profit. Microsoft and Google can afford to offer this type of product without having to focus immediately on revenue. To offer it for free, even without advertising, will work to their advantage as a way to lock users into their systems.

Thoughts? Bring on the comments.

Jeremy had a great suggestion that we should allow users to chat with us in real time. While I haven’t done a lot of research in the space, I am familiar with the ‘old school’ customer service apps like liveperson. Personally, I think it would be cool if meebo had a way to put a little module on your website - then I could just chat with you from AIM (maybe that’s their business model?). Until that happens, we’ll just stick with Gabbly. I’m sure it will take a little more work to integrate this better, but for now, if you want to chat with us, just click the following link:

Click here to chat with Box.net!

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Update: Well, that was a success! After chatting with plenty of Box.net users via Gabbly in the last few hours, I’m convinced that this will be a valuable addition to Box.net.

Sorry again to everyone who is noticing problems! We thought we had the problem solved temporarily, but in fact our slowness still exists. We are now working 18 hour shifts to get this running properly. I believe we can look forward to everything being smooth very soon. We know how important the access of your data is, and we are doing everything we can to make sure the site performs quickly and reliably. Once we make it through this, everything should be great thereafter. Thanks for your patience and support.

Sorry to anyone who noticed some delays on Monday evening. We’re working on fixing the speed issues on the site by experimenting with some new database clustering. It seems there is no “perfect” solution for this, and that has been the cause for some of the noticeable issues lately. We’re working to resolve this and will not sleep (literally) until we have a good solution.